Emergency stop systems are known in the related art for dealing with a situation where it is difficult for a driver of a vehicle to continue to drive the vehicle.
For example, there has been proposed an emergency warning apparatus for a vehicle, which is provided with an emergency warning device for, in response to depression of an emergency warning button, sending a request to a control device for the vehicle to bring the vehicle to an automatic stop and sending instructions to a hazard light control device to turn on hazard lights (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-233886).
The proposed emergency warning apparatus for a vehicle allows the hazard lights to be turned on when performing a process for bringing the vehicle to an automatic stop, which can alert nearby vehicles such as vehicles approaching from the rear that the vehicle is operating under emergency stop conditions.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-233886, a user operation potentially conflicts with an operation of controlling the hazard lights to be turned on, which is involved in a process for bringing the vehicle to an automatic stop. Thus, the hazard lights may be unintentionally controlled to be turned on and such control may cause the user to feel awkward.